


the chillest land

by bee_bro



Series: tma h/c week, babes [6]
Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Episode: e170 Recollection (The Magnus Archives), M/M, The Magnus Archives Hurt/Comfort Week, author's just having fun, basically: they get to rest and talk about poetry after mag170, but not canonically compliant, ch1: jon lookin for martin ch2: the boys get to chill, jon's pov of the episode
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-06
Updated: 2020-11-06
Packaged: 2021-03-06 18:28:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,212
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26323390
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bee_bro/pseuds/bee_bro
Summary: Jon searches for Martin in the Lonely, meets an inexplicable white dove, and tolerates Martin's recital of poetry as they rest afterwards (that's a lie, he loves it).
Relationships: Martin Blackwood/Jonathan "Jon" Sims | The Archivist
Series: tma h/c week, babes [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1895815
Comments: 5
Kudos: 49





	1. a tune without the words

**Author's Note:**

> well hello hello dont mind me layering my own symbolism and bending canon. this just in! the fearpocalypse is a bit more ok bcs i specifically will let them catch a break after the lonely domain
> 
> (points at these two) ha can you imagine being this dumb and in love at the same time

The outside is not kind and yet the horizon is marked clearly with their destination: a tower that defies distance and always seems so close. One trench, another, one domain, another, and Jon makes sure to hold Martin’s hand when he can because there’s always a chance they’ll lose each other’s grip and never find it again. He could call it his only fear.

This almost comes to life once.

Because Jon is reaching back to stick his palm out, waiting for Martin to grab onto it, and the only thing that caresses his fingers is fog.

When he turns, there is no Martin. There is only marsh and fog and clumps of grass as if in a great big swamp of grey endless water. Step carefully, watch your feet, watch your self, watch where you put your weight. Watch the person who’s meant to be following you. Because all of a sudden Jon is out on the water alone. His only company is the fog that he should’ve recognized from the moment it’d settled: the great, heavy You Are Alone.

Jon wanders the marsh in circles, scared to leave the one point he’d lost martin at, what if he walks too far and leaves the domain? What if there’s a point in doing so? The swamp is peaceful, a part of his brain reasons, peaceful, no screams, no gore and spilt terror, only calm water and cold fog and a type of quiet that seems deadly-foreign after weeks of trudging through a hellscape that doesn’t know time.

And then he hears it for the first time: a static that comes to his left, a clear, familiar noise. He’d heard that static many many times, both on his own tapes and Gertrude’s, and Jon immediately turns, starts walking from one grassy island to another, following where the static had spiked and is now murmuring its little, crackling song.

Small hills lead him to what looks like land, similarly damp and clammy, but land, and when Jon looks up he swears that in the distance stands a house, big and sprawling and dark. But with one step in its direction, it is gone and the crackling cuts off and Jon is once more left standing there like a fool in the midst of gentle fog.

This happens three more times. And each one, the house is in a different direction. At first, Jon thinks he’s simply mistaken, that he must get turned around in the confusion of the mist, but no, the house is the one that moves, as with every crackle of static Jon sees it in a new direction.

And every time, no matter how he chases it, the fog will swallow the house down and replace it with more blank land. But on the fourth, Jon hears something else. Jon hears a voice.

It is so painfully, undeniably Martin’s that he’s ready to weep, and the voice says, far away as if through water: “the thing with feathers.”

It stumps Jon but he calls back, loud, _I’m here, Martin I’m here, follow my voice._

Nothing.

He wonders the marsh, calling out and listening for static, and thinking: the thing with feathers. That’s barely terrifying but it plagues him. Is there something else here? Wondering the waters? Something feathered and equally silent? He’s less afraid for himself and more afraid that Martin’s met it, met it and is calling out to Jon about it, beware, the thing with feathers.

And as tiring as it is, it’s nowhere close to some of the other domains they’ve picked through. There is not a single corpse, no matter how much Jon’s expecting to see one on an island. Hence… it would make sense that everyone in the Lonely is still alive. A plan forms in the back of his head, a plan he doesn’t want to think out, doesn’t want to enact on, but knows he might need to. If he hurries, he can leave Martin here, where it’s safe, almost like a padded room, figure everything out and come back, get him. Make the traveling carry fewer stakes, don’t worry about losing him again, right, right-

The static spikes to his right and Jon pivots- there’s the house, still far away, and now Martin’s voice, he’s rambling but it’s so muddled Jon can’t hear until it’s suddenly his name, _Jon, Jon,_ being exclaimed like Martin’s looking for him, frantic, and Jon runs now, sprinting at the house even with his bad leg, running the fastest he’s run in so long. The static remains and he runs, runs, and the house is actually getting closer until it cuts out- it all cuts out, the sound and the visual of the mansion and Jon suddenly realizes he’s running into water, already up to the knees and he has to skid to a stop as to avoid toppling or dropping into a depth that will require swimming. He walks back onto land and watches the water shift, treacherous in where it led him.

He does not want to leave Martin here. With all his head and heart and every bone and blood cell in his body he does not want to leave Martin. He wants Martin holding his hand and walking through the horrors that he’s sown upon the world and walking towards the point on the horizon that both of them _hope_ beyond hope will fix everything-

Jon hears the flutter of wings.

He looks around wildly- _the thing with feathers –_ and yet the grey skies remain just that, low, grey, and oppressive, no shadow of a flying beast, and Jon wonders why the Lonely would manifest in a great feathered thing to torture those who trespass the marshes.

Nothing moves but the mist and Jon hears no footsteps aside from his own – a nearly impossible feat as the ground echoes each his footfall with a sad soggy noise. And yet, as he’s about to look away, something falls from the sky. It is a single white feather, that of a bird, Jon reasons, as something larger would inevitably carry bigger feathers. It must be.

He catches it, plucking it out of its spiraling trajectory down and holding it close, examining it. Blank and plain, and then the static starts up and Jon’s running again, running to find Martin and there’s the house’s silhouette- and he gets so close, feather held right in his fist, and he’s so full of the need to see Martin and have him back and hold his hand and hope for the best that he almost doesn’t expect to reach the house. Except he does. Jon almost runs into one of its outside walls and hits it full-on, and the house is _real._ It’s huge and made of black, mahogany wood that’s wet with mist and crawling with white mold-like traces. Jon starts sprinting against its perimeter looking for the door, for a way in, shouting _Martin Martin Martin,_ and then the static cuts and the house once more huffs into thin air leaving behind mist and nothing. Jon falls onto the ground and he knows he’s crying and everything is once more quiet, pleading _no no no no no please Martin please_.

Two more times. Two more times he hears Martin’s voice, the static, and reaches the house and it's never on a side with a door, and two more times the house turns to thin air before his eyes. He can feel his throat tire from shouting and against better judgment Jon sits, legs aching, nails having bitted little crescents into his palms.

Against better judgment, he understands he'll never get Martin back like this. Without fighting back _harder_ _._ Jon knows every time he uses his powers, _seriously_ uses them, the door that leads to an ocean wrenches the tad bit wider. Not-Sasha had left his hands shaking for two days, buzzing with the spike in how much _Other_ his body channels. And now he feels foolish not having attempted this sooner, not having sat down and attempted to _bring_ the house into existence.

He holds his head and hopes this will work, and he begins to Look.

It’s like trying to open your eyes under water. It stings and it’s all muddy and distorted and he can feel the mist beginning to move around him and yet it will not give up Martin, but what it does it show Jon one crucial detail: the house has no doors. He sees it, in his mind or in reality wherever it is, the house is only walls. Only walls and a few windows.

The next time the static hits, Jon is ready.

He sprints, knowing he needs to get in _now_ or he won’t catch up to it next time, won’t be able to sprint again with enough efficiency. He hits the house fast and uses the built-up momentum to hook the toe of his booth into a loose plank, pushing off it and letting the hope to _make it_ push him- and when his fingers hook into a windowsill, high off the ground, he almost cannot believe it-

The elation doesn’t last long as something moves, he’d startled something on the sill and it makes a noise and there’s a series of claps and Jon almost slips, almost loses his hold and something takes off into the sky and he sees: a white bird, a normal, in no way extraordinary white bird, and it startles and flies and Jon spares it only one glance to calm his mind before starting to pull himself up, boots clambering for purchase on the decayed boards.

He’s inside the house before it has time to drop away into smoke.

Jon sits there for a second, inside the house and right under the window, panting, his legs hurt his hands hurt but he’s this much closer to Martin. He’ll find him and then he’ll ask him if he… if he wants to stay. Jon hopes the answer is no. The bird’s left feathers all over the floor, Jon notes as he stands back up, and wonders what the bloody hell animals have any business doing in the Lonely.

The house is… winding and confusing but all its hallways are tall and wide and inappropriate to walk through alone. Guess that’s the point, Jon thinks, moving briskly and shouting Martin’s name to little avail. The portrait frames on the walls are empty. That is, until they begin containing mirrors and Jon can see himself pass through the halls, somehow desaturated in the lighting, everything assuming a blue-ish quality to it, and it’s cold, so cold, and Jon holds that first feather and listens, listens in hopes of hearing that static.

When he does, it echoes, it echoes through the house, directionless, and Jon so badly hopes to understand where it’d come from. He runs again, feeling it ache in his bones, shoes wet from the marshes, and then he hears it, Martin’s voice past the static, and he runs faster, hands pumping, and he can’t make out what the words are- but when he suddenly _can,_ he knows he’s moving closer, so he keeps going, _I am Martin Blackwood_ it says, and then even more clear: _I am not lonely anymore; I am not lonely anymore._

Jon screams his name, hears Martin pause and start calling back, and it doesn’t sound disembodied anymore, it’s coming from behind a door and then another and another, misty room after misty room but the fog grows stronger so he must be getting closer and he shouts again and Martin shouts back and when Jon finally turns a corner, breathless, and sees Martin- the fog dissipates like from a gust of wind.

The try to leave the Lonely on light feet.


	2. the words for one such tune

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> felt a bit sad over leaving this one unfinished when it was only 2 chapters so ummmmm (hidesS)

Unlike what they’d feared when they set out, the scape is not just endless domain. There’s small rest stops and bless them for that. Islands in the tormenting landscape of fear that provide scant peace, even if many disappear within three to four hours, reclaimed by the horrors around them.

This time it’s a still-standing stretch of stone cobble wall that used to be someone’s fence. Jon feels when the domain fades away and they’re left in a silent, unmoving haven.

“We can rest here,” Jon sighs, letting go of Martin’s hand momentarily to begin slipping his bag off, shoulders sore. They’d been walking almost long enough to entirely dry from the Lonely’s bog. There’s the smell of stale water about them, but it’s ages better than blood.

“Sweet,” Martin begins to sit down, “Peepaw’s old cottage aesthetic wall.” He’s tired and drained but when Jon sits down too, instinctively curling into Martin’s side and shuffling until Martin drapes an arm over him, it’s… It’s good.

“We’ll be okay,” he says out of nowhere and feels Martin look at him.

“The Eye tell you that?”

Jon stares at their discarded belongings and watches mild breeze from nowhere flutter that white feather. He shrugs and hopes Martin won’t ask him to elaborate. He doesn’t know. For once. There’s almost a sense of comfort in that, that he’s still allowed to not know.

He leans forward to pluck the feather off, sighing and twirling it in his fingers. It’s damp and rumpled but strangely intact, still with them even after endless walking and pulling each other out of puddles that threaten to take you under.

“Where’d you get that,” Martin leans his head on Jon’s, heavy with exhaustion.

“Don’t know,” Jon smiles adoringly at the feather, examining it and reveling in the fact he can garner absolutely no information about its source or meaning. No eldritch intervening. A mysterious feather that can remain a mystery. He misses… mysteries. Sitting down for a statement and knowing absolutely nothing past the supplementaries brought in by his crew – most often dead ends. At least in those first months. Dead ends. No repeating names. No familiar faces. Only the knowledge that he had a job to do and a document to read. Was that it, then? Was that the Eye already? Elias? Pushing him to keep looking? Jon sighs deeply, smelling the damp cobble of their temporary rest.

“Where’d you get it? We haven’t seen any birds.”

“In the Lonely.” Jon hands the feather over, “I thought something was wondering the bogs.”

“What gave you the idea,” Martin examines the feather too, smiling faintly at it.

“You,” Jon leans his head on Martin’s chest, “You told me to be wary of it. The thing with feathers. Figured something was going around, never saw it though. Found it much more productive to chase your location rather than a hypothetical beast. Probably a bird.”

Martin looks down at him with raised eyebrows, “The thing with feathers?”

“Yes?”

Martin’s smile is familiar and soft, the kind Jon’s come to miss now that both of them shoulder more weight. “That’s from a poem, Jon.”

“Yours or…?”

“Not mine,” Martin chuckles, “Emily Dickinson.”

“Never heard of them,” Jon refuses to receive knowledge about this poet or their poems, forcefully shutting the flow of information threatening to spill into his eyes. “Might like to keep it that way.”

“Mm, your pick, poetry-hater,” Martin smiles and sways them a bit, “I suppose it makes sense, then. I was reading it in the house. To pass the time, I suppose. Perhaps it’s found its way into the domain. Or to you.”

“Mahtin…. Unfair. You know I’m curious about it now,” Jon sighs but he’s smiling a bit, enjoying the sound of Martin’s voice as it resonates through his chest and into Jon’s ear. They used to nap like this, before things went to shit. Did they? Jon squints at the fog, watching the traces of black tree silhouettes in the distance. He’s almost waiting for them to move, become people walking all in one direction. Traveling towards the same goal: an ever-watching opponent at the center of the bloody world.

Martin starts reciting the poem, calmly and with a natural rhythm. Jon holds Martin’s own writing in embarrassingly high regard, but mostly anything read by Martin is pleasant. He could read the dictionary, stuttering through it and smiling, and Jon would listen to every word. So he doesn’t mind. He watches the trees in their tranquil stillness and lets himself enjoy it.

“Hope is the thing with feathers,” Martin’s voice carries through, and Jon breathes.

 _That perches in the soul-_ the air is cold and refreshing for once, no stink of sewage or wax.

_And sings the tune without the words_

_And never stops at all_

Martin breathes, his words quiet and calm at first, but gaining volume as he starts on the second stanza, like he’s reading it to what’s around them, not just to Jon. Count on Martin to read poetry for the hellscape that they travel- or rather, the sanctuary they’re allowed.

_And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard_

_And sore must be the storm_

Martin’s voice quivers a bit and Jon opens his eyes from where they’d drifted closed, watching the trees again, watching the limited distance, enjoying the long-missed feeling of being sleepy. 

_That could abash the little Bird_

Martin spins the feather in his hand and then offers it back to Jon.

_That kept so many warm_

He takes a long enough pause here, that Jon begins to convince himself the poem’s over, even as he simply _knows_ there’s more to it. As if he’d read this years ago and retained the fact this isn’t the end. When Martin speaks again, it’s back to being quiet, head tilted to speak the lines into Jon’s hair.

_I've heard it in the chillest land_

He holds Jon close, some semblance of warmth, but the cobble behind them is unwavering in its thorough cold. Their still wet pantlegs don’t help. Neither can get sick, Jon knows, but none of this is pleasant.

_And on the strangest Sea_

Martin sighs the line, and Jon wishes he didn’t _know_ that Martin was thinking of a beach, of a long, evenly lit beach with no beginning or end, the ocean never getting deeper. Jon running through water, much more full of colors than his surroundings, looking for him, looking for him.

_Yet, never, in Extremity,_

Martin kisses the crown of his head.

_“It asked a crumb - of me.”_

He exhales, the last line spoken into Jon’s hair, quietly. Jon holds the white dove’s feather, watching its peaceful slopes.

“It’s about hope,” he mouths, sighing, flicking his eyes up to Martin and back out to the trees. They’re people, aren’t they, Jon thinks. He can see an immobile hand. The safezone is fading. He tries to wake up a bit, sit up straighter. Martin holds on though, wordlessly communicating to stay. Just a few more seconds. Just a bit more. Just a few more breaths before they stand and walk. Before they tuck the white feather into a safe, dry spot, somewhere close to the chest, and walk on. Walk on towards their only and last goal. Trusting it to be the finish. Somewhere, that if you reach it, everything can end. Everyone can survive. Among the chilliest lands and strangest seas.

They hold hands, cold, but together. Forwards. On light feet.

**Author's Note:**

> ch2 coming Rather Soon my fellow cowboys


End file.
